Outside Paradise, government will never be perfect. But that's no reason to give up
on it—any more than the fact that we can't love our children perfectly entails giving up on loving them as well as we can.

Sooner or later, and usually sooner, conversations about passenger trains and Amtrak in particular sputter with the dirty "s-word": subsidies. But all American means of transportation de­pend on "subsidies."

In my capacity as an editor for Baker Aca­demic and Brazos Press, I annually attend the meetings of the American Academy of Reli­gion and the Society of Bib­lical Litera­ture. These conferences al­ways provide occasion for reflection on current trends in theology and biblical studies.